I refer to the article ‘Elderly man cannot repossess garage in spite of court ruling’ (March 26) which may not be entirely correct.

The case referred was filed in the Rent Regulation Board on April 10, 2015 and decided on July 2, 2015. It took only 83 days to be decided and this because the applicant did not provide the defendant’s proper address as, otherwise, it would have been decided earlier.

When the service on the defendant of a judicial act is not done personally, the law lays down a strict procedure that is to be meticulously followed.

Applicant commenced the execution of the judgment on September 23, 2015 when he filed the relative application for the eviction order. The eviction order was authorised on September 28, 2015. The court marshal tried to execute the order but could not proceed with the eviction as the plaintiff did not provide the correct defendant’s address.

Following the required procedure, the plaintiff filed another application on January 27, 2016 to force open the place and this was authorised by the Board on February 1, 2016.

The court marshal executed the warrant on February 18, 2016 when he forced open the door and evicted the defendant from the garage and deposited the new keys in the registry of the Civil Courts as obliged by law to do. Emanuel Agius needs only to file an application in the registry so he may be authorised to withdraw the keys.

With regard to the new court case mentioned in the article, Agius filed a precautionary warrant of seizure of movable property against the defendant as he is now claiming arrears of rent, something he never did in his original claim.

With regard to the judicial expenses, may I point out that the official bills of costs relative to the judicial acts filed by Agius areas follows:

Judicial letter including newspaper adverts - €260.68

Court case - €183.19

Eviction order - €368.46

These do not include all costs for newspaper adverts and the police as such receipts were never filed in the proceedings.